"Posture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lay one of the stretcher-bearers, the red cross on his arm covered with mud and his helmet filled with blood and brains. Close by, sitting up against the wall of the trench, with head resting on his chest, was the other stretcher-bearer. He seemed to be alive, the posture was so natural and easy, but when I got closer, I could see a large, jagged hole in, his temple. The three must have been killed by the same shell-burst. The dugouts were all smashed in and knocked about, big square-cut timbers splintered into bits, walls caved ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... sitting posture. His head ached terribly—he was stiff in every limb: a burning, almost intolerable pain gnawed at his thigh and at his left arm. But consciousness had returned and with it all the knowledge of what this day had meant: all round him there was the broken corn, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... now made, both by the besiegers and the besieged, to carry on the contest with the utmost vigor. Hamet went the rounds of the walls and towers, doubling the guards and putting everything in the best posture of defence. The garrison was divided into parties of a hundred, to each of which a captain was appointed. Some were to patrol, others to sally forth and skirmish with the enemy, and others to hold ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... with Buddhism and astrology, and was able to act as interpreter of the Chinese language. With his name is associated the origin of the shirabyoshi, or "white measure-markers"—girls clad in white, who, by posture and gesture, beat time to music, and, in after ages, became the celebrated geisha of Japan. To the practice of such arts and accomplishments Michinori devoted a great part of his life, and when, in 1140, that is to say, sixteen years before ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... described than in the words written many years previously by the author of Lothair himself. "The ladies did their best to signalize what the Cardinal was and what he represented, by reverences which a posture-master might have envied and certainly could not have surpassed. They seemed to sink into the earth, and slowly and ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... In doctrine they do not appear to differ from the various bodies of Arminian Methodists. The forms of public worship are of the same simple character. But in the administration of the Lord's Supper "it is usual to receive the elements in a sitting posture, as it is believed that that practice is more comformable to the posture of body in which it was first received by Christ's Apostles, than kneeling; but persons are at liberty to kneel, if it be more suitable to their views and feelings to do so." Members of this sect ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... falchion had fallen from its hand, and it was leaning up against the wall in a strained and uncomfortable attitude. He rushed forward and seized it in his arms, when, to his horror, the head slipped off and rolled on the floor, the body assumed a recumbent posture, and he found himself clasping a white dimity bed-curtain, with a sweeping-brush, a kitchen cleaver, and a hollow turnip lying at his feet! Unable to understand this curious transformation, he clutched the placard with feverish haste, and there, in the gray morning ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... 'and I will set you free.' He then gave orders what further he would have him do; and away went Ariel, first to where he had left Ferdinand, and found him still sitting on the grass in the same melancholy posture. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the breath is departed, the body is dressed in the same attire it usually wore, his face is painted, and he is seated in an erect posture on a mat or skin, placed in the middle of the hut, with his weapons by his side. His relatives, seated around, each harangues the deceased; and if he has been a great warrior, recounts his heroic actions ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... seemed light in contrast. It was evident that she had studied grace so thoroughly that her manner and carriage appeared unstudied and natural. She never seemed self-conscious, and yet no one had ever seen her in an ungainly posture or had known her to make an awkward gesture. This grace, however, like a finished style in writing, was tinged so strongly with her own individuality that it appeared original as compared with the fashionable monotony which characterized ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... started back, and, stooping his head on his breast, with his hands over his eyes, as if to save them from being dazzled by an expected burst of light, awaited the answer to his summons. The Anglo-Dane, desirous to obey his leader, imitating him as near as he could, stood side by side in the posture of Oriental humiliation. The little portal opened inwards, when no burst of light was seen, but four of the Varangians were made visible in the entrance, holding each his battle-axe, as if about to strike down the intruders who had disturbed the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... sitting posture, as if to reply, fumbled in his watch-pocket for a match, instead; shook the ashes from his brier-wood, filled the bowl with some tobacco from his rubber pouch, drew the lucifer across his shoe, waited until the blue smoke mounted skyward and resumed ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... dark figure stretched upon the sheets sprang into a sitting posture. Laverick was conscious of a distinct shock. It was Morrison, still wearing the clothes in which he had left the office, his collar crushed out of all shape, his tie vanished. His black hair, usually so shiny and perfectly arranged, was all disordered. ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... would take Care to right her against her Brother; and, that in the mean Time she should be as welcome to him as any of his nearest Kindred, except his Wife and Daughter. Philadelphia would have knelt to thank him; but he told her, that humble Posture was due to none but Heaven, and the King sometimes. In a little While after, the Lady Fairlaw and her Daughter came Home, who were surpriz'd at the Sight of a Stranger, but more at her Beauty, and most of all at her Story, which the good old Gentleman himself ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... than he who dies in arms, whom the enemy found it easier to slay than to turn back. To be conquered, which you consider disgraceful, cannot happen to a good man; for he will never surrender, never give up the contest, to the last day of his life he will stand prepared and in that posture he will die, testifying that though he has received much, yet that he had the will to repay as ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... the swift leap to the right threw Tad half way over on the beast's left side. Fortunately, the lad gripped the pommel with his right hand as he felt himself going, and little by little he pulled himself once more to an upright posture. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... size, broad-beamed and seaworthy. In the forward part lay the body of a woman; curled up and resting upon the boat's bottom, the head buried upon the broad seat so that no face was visible, with one hand hidden beneath, the other outstretched above the rail. So huddled was her posture that I could distinguish few details in the fading light; yet I noted that she wore a white upper garment, and that her thick hair flowed in a dense black mass about ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... came to a stooping posture, and, with one gloved hand on the railing to steady him self, wabbled the bulky cane again in the direction ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... to bask in the warmth of the sun. A walrus rose in one of these pools close to the ship, and, finding everything quiet, dived down and brought up its young, which it held to its breast by pressing it with its flipper. In this manner it moved about the pool, keeping in an erect posture, and always directing the face of the young towards the vessel. On the slightest movement on board, the mother released her flipper, and pushed the young one under water; but, when everything was ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... As for you, I hold your intellect to be Catholic. You cannot help it, but your habits of feeling will give you, as they gave me, more trouble than your reason. How can it be otherwise, considering how many years of training in one posture we both of us underwent? But I pray and hope for you, and that speedily, that freedom of life and limb which has been vouchsafed to me. Freedom indeed it is, for it is to breathe in all its fulness the grace and mercy of God's kingdom, instead of tasting it through the narrow lattices ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... fearfully at our schoolroom window, lest I should be discovered in so unmanly a posture. It seemed that we were quite ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... rested on the ice,—posture of the Dying Gladiator. She made an effort to be cool and distant as usual; but it would not do. This weak mighty man still interested her. It was still her business to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... by now taken the measure of their white opponents. They knew they had to deal with experience. Suspicion of this must have been aroused by the practised manner in which the men had hobbled their horses and had assumed the easiest posture of defence. The idea would have gained strength from their superior marksmanship; but it would have become absolute certainty from the small detail that, in all this hurl and rush of excitement, they had fired but five shots, and those ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... illness progressed, she could neither sleep, save by the use of opiates, nor rest, except in a sloping posture, propped up by many pillows. It was my great joy, and a pleasant diversion, to be allowed to shift, beat up, and rearrange these pillows, a task which I learned to accomplish not too awkwardly. Her sufferings, I believe, were principally caused ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... difficulty articulating, "I breathe." Smollett refused to be hypnotized by the famous Venus discovered at Hadrian's villa, brought from Tivoli in 1680, and then in the height of its renown; the form he admired, but condemned the face and the posture. Personally I disagree with Smollett, though the balance of cultivated opinion has since come round to his side. The guilt of Smollett lay in criticizing what was above criticism, as the contents of the Tribuna were then held to be. And in defence of this point of view it may at least ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... lolling posture, placed another cartridge in his revolver and lit a fresh cigarette. By and by his eyes closed and Major Starland saw that he slept. The American arose to his feet, yawned and stretched his arms over his head, holding the tiller ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... over the fireside scene. The lamp threw a dim ray around its small flame unruffled by the confined and motionless air. The fawn was coiled in a sleeping posture under its master's bed, while the kitten purred upon its velvet back. On one side of the hearth lay Sneak, his head pillowed upon one of the hounds, while the other slept against his back. Joe was the only one present who had ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... night when he felt himself being dragged into a sitting posture. He remonstrated in a mumbling voice. "'S too early," he said. "Altogether too early. Early. Whew! Watch 'er spin. Jus' his job. Paid ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... her eyes again Roaring Bill had her head in his lap, peering anxiously down. She caught a glimpse of the unsteady hand that held a cup of water, and she struggled to a sitting posture with a shudder. Bill's shirt was ripped from the neckband to the wrist, baring his sinewy arm. And hand, arm, and shoulder were spattered with fresh blood. His face was spotted where he had smeared it with his ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... fallut apprendre a coucher sur la dure, a ne boire que de l'eau, a m'asseoir a terre, les jambes croisees. Cette posture me couta d'abord beaucoup; mais ce a quoi j'eus plus de peine encore a m'accoutumer, fut d'etre a cheval avec des etriers courts. Dans le commencemens je souffrois si fort, que, quand j'etois descendu, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... she knelt down beside her bed, her bare white feet peeping out from beneath the drapery of her white night-dress, in a posture that would have made the most human atheist believe in the beauty of devotion, those words were still in her ears: "The price of ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... hand over Carr's grizzled hair with a caressing touch. Then she got up and walked away into the house. Carr turned his gaze again to the meadow and the green woods beyond. For ten minutes he sat, his posture one of peculiar tensity, his eyes on the distance unseeingly—or as if he saw something vague and far-off that troubled him. Then he gave his shoulders a quick impatient twitch, and taking up his book began once more ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the lads swiftly passed. In all but one they found ghastly occupants, some stretched out in the posture of sleep, some sitting at table like the first seen, but all showing that death ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... enough to dictate any action, but made itself felt in faint misgivings and relentings, which sometimes restrained men from extremes of cruelty. Like Enceladus under Aetna, it lay fettered at the bottom of human nature, now and then making the mass above it quake by an uneasy change of posture. To make this outraged and enslaved passion predominant, to give it, instead of a veto rarely used, the whole power of government, to train it from a dim misgiving into a clear and strong passion, required much more than a precept. The precept had its use; it could make men feel it ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... asked Mr. Dinsmore, stepping out upon the veranda, where Harold stood leaning against a vine-wreathed pillar, his blue eyes fixed with a sort of wistful, longing look upon Elsie's graceful figure and fair face, as she sat in a half-reclining posture on a low couch but a ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... again, and remained quite quiet for a few minutes longer. Then she started up into a sitting posture, pushed her hair away from her forehead and burning eyes, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with the same speed refilled it from the tumbler. She laid it down again exactly where it had been before, looked to see that there were no drops spilled. Then once more she lay down, trying with meticulous care to resume her old posture. Was this right? No, her head must have been a little lower. Oh, what hope was there of deceiving those keen little python's eyes? The man would surely detect the smallest variation in her attitude. No, it was a pathetic ruse, foredoomed to failure. If he suspected ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... skirt in the door as I went through, and I had to stop to loosen it. And in that awful minute I heard some one breathing just beside me. I had stooped to my gown, and I turned my head without straightening—I couldn't have raised myself to an erect posture, for my knees were giving way under me—and just at my feet lay the still glowing end ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... narrative in writing, which was to be the basis for asking for a liberal grant, was laid before the House. The treachery of the Dutch and their open aggressions were exposed; and as the King was thus "forced to put himself in the posture he is now in for the defence of his subjects at so vast an expense," he trusted that Parliament "would cheerfully enable him to prosecute the war with the same vigour he hath prepared for it, by giving him supplies proportionate to the ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... render the soldiers' ardor, as a man may say, more reserved and cold." This is what he says. But, if Caesar had come by the worse, why might it not as well have been urged by another, that, on the contrary, the strongest and most steady posture of fighting is that wherein a man stands planted firm, without motion; and that they who are steady upon the march, closing up, and reserving their force within themselves for the push of the business, have a great advantage against those who are disordered, and who have ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Gertrude,' said Lord Cadurcis, coolly, but rather regretting he had quitted his original and less assailable posture, 'you know I like ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... day, and did tell her, that as long as she kept the same, she should be able to do what she pleased; and that same woman, from whom she got the tree, caused her spread a cloth before her door, and set her foot upon it, and to repeat thrice, in the posture foresaid, these words, 'All her losses and crosses go alongst to the doors,' which was truly a consulting with the devil, and an act of sorcery, &c. That after the spirit, in the shape of a woman, who gave her ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... unusual movement. Half-dreaming still, he thought that Schriften, the pilot, had in his sleep been attempting to gain his relic, had passed the chain over his head, and was removing quietly from underneath his neck the portion of the chain which, in his reclining posture, he lay upon. Startled at the idea, he threw up his hand to seize the arm of the wretch, and found that he had really seized hold of Schriften, who was kneeling by him, and in possession of the chain and relic. The struggle was short, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... at this moment, 'Ariel sleeps in this posture, does he not, Auntie?' Suiting the action to the word she flung out her arms behind her head as she lay in the green silk hammock, idly closed her pink eyelids, and swung ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... saucer. The lady and her cat offered to view a group as pretty as a popular painting; it was even improved when, stooping, Miss Apperthwaite set the saucer upon the ground, and, continuing in that posture, stroked the cat. To bend so far is a test of a woman's grace, I ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... performance almost an air of prudery. Watching her wondrous dexterity and pliant strength, both exercised without apparent effort, it seemed the most natural proceeding in the world that she should do those unpardonable things. She had a way of melting from one graceful posture into another, like the dissolving figures thrown from a stereopticon. She was a lithe, radiant shape out of the Grecian mythology, now poised up there above the gaslights, and now gleaming through the air ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to create sensation in House. Doubted whether, as he was not about to move the Address, he would be permitted to enter with sword by his side. But he would be free of the smoke-room; might posture in the Lobby; might read an evening paper in the tea-room, whilst others enviously ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... staghounds, in her one-horse chaise—a hot redfaced woman.... She was neither better bred nor wiser than you and me, though we knelt to hand her a letter or a washhand basin. Why shall History go on kneeling to the end of time? I am for having her rise off her knees, and take her natural posture, not to be for ever performing cringes and congees like a Court chamberlain, and shuffling backward out of doors in the presence of the sovereign. In a word, I would have History familiar ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the corner of the flagstaff, a young girl came suddenly into sight by the jutting edge of sandstone bluff near the High Wickham; and Herbert, jumping up at once from his reclining posture, raised his bat to her with stately politeness, and moved forward in his courtly graceful manner to meet her as she approached. 'Well, Selah,' he said, taking her hand a little warmly (judged at least by Herbert Le Breton's usual standard), 'so you've ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... laid; His head and shoulders, severed from the trunk; Fell in the sea, and to the bottom sunk, Abjuring Mahomet, and all the tribe Of idle prophets, Catholics proscribe; Erect the rest upon the legs remained; The very posture as before retained; This curious sight no doubt a laugh had raised,— But in the moment, she, so lately praised, With dread Grifonio, fell beyond their view; To save her, straight the gallant Hispal flew. The ships, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... always characteristic of Leonardo; and this feeling is further indicated here by the half-humorous pathos of the diminutive, rounded shoulders of the child. You may note a like pathetic power in drawings of a young man seated in a stooping posture, his face in his hands, as in sorrow; of a slave sitting in an uneasy inclined posture, in some brief interval of rest; of a small Madonna and Child, peeping sideways in half-reassured terror, as a mighty griffin with batlike ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... off his blanket and drew himself through the low opening of the tent. On the extreme right of the fire stood a man and woman, warming themselves over the coals. They straightened from their leaning posture as he appeared. ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... Frighted, and Pan also made a half movement towards rising, but instantly sank back again to his negligent, easy posture. ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... composed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter day. The politician would be contented to loose three years of his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... prevailed; indeed there sat many in the same immovable posture. But it was evident that the words were being received with pleasure and satisfaction. Signs of approval ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... automatically, the image of the evil priest, who had lived there with his court of harlots. He felt weary from kneeling, and let himself sink to the ground. Again he was the slow automaton. With a painful effort he rose to a sitting posture, and dropped his hand upon the tufts of soft, sweet-smelling grass, pushing up between the stones. He closed his eyes in enjoyment of the sweetness of that soft touch, of the wild odour, of rest, and he saw Jeanne, pale under the drooping ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... period when the territory of Avignon was styled by the kings of France the "derriere du Pape," from the convenient posture in which it lay for their correction, one may fancy the same scenes to have taken place on a larger scale, which are described as occurring at the bridge of Kennaquhair, the same struggle between secular ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... choir file into their places. She had no interest now in the bishop's robes or the lighted tapers or cryptic inscriptions. Throughout the long service her attention was riveted on the handsome, white-robed figure which sat in a posture of bored resignation, wearing an ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... finished the turn of the game on which she was engaged just then. That done, she clasped all the Jack Stones in her hand, assumed the upright posture, and looked ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... to a sitting posture and took stock of the wreck. His hat he could not see anywhere, the reason being that he was sitting on it. The paper bag, of course, had burst; some of the apples had rolled to amazing distances, and newsboys, entire strangers to the fallen gentleman, were eating them with ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... could not guess. It was midway of the Cat's Mouth that I first caught sight of him, at no great distance measured by feet and inches, but as far beyond human aid as if the wide Atlantic had separated us. He was standing up in the stern, with folded arms, in something the posture he may have maintained on the poop of his ship in old days—where, perhaps, he fancied himself at this moment. I trust that reason was withheld from him in the utter hour; and certainly, although I could not discern his features, I saw him make ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... three o'clock on Sunday morning, February 12, Kant stretched himself out as if taking a position for his final act, and settled into the precise posture which he preserved to the moment of death. The pulse was now no longer perceptible to the touch in his hands, feet or neck. I tried every part where a pulse beats, and found none anywhere but in the left hip, where it beat ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... and smiled. Asking of Hatim now was only another form of inquiry after his master; not merely had the latter been in her mind; she wished to know more about him. On his part, the story-teller arose from his servile posture, and asked with the animation of one to whom a favorite theme ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... sound of this last name, to which I had artfully led up, Sophia sprang into a sitting posture and gave me a ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... to the bench]. At the word Go, place your prisoner on the bench in a sitting posture; and take your seats right ...
— Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress • George Bernard Shaw
... Unda," said the queen; "their light, I think, little becomes me. Put them out." And when this was done, she composedly ordered her pipe and threw herself lazily at length upon a pile of kincob cushions, her posture the more careless since she knew herself secure from observation; the garden ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... roasting these anthropomorphous animals contributes to render their appearance extremely disagreeable in the eyes of civilized man. A little grating or lattice of very hard wood is formed, and raised one foot from the ground. The monkey is skinned, and bent into a sitting posture; the head generally resting on the arms, which are meagre and long; but sometimes these are crossed behind the back. When it is tied on the grating, a very clear fire is kindled below. The monkey, enveloped ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... resist force without striking again, or how to strike with reverence, will need some skill to make intelligible. He that shall oppose an assault only with a shield to receive the blow, or in any more respectful posture without a sword in his hand, to abate the confidence and force of the assailant will quickly be at the end of his resistance, and will find such a defence serve only to draw on him the worse usage: this is as ridiculous a way of resisting, as Juvenal thought ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... disappeared, and men took their place. Gradually it became evident that each pair of soles represented an individual, who lay luxuriously poised on the back legs of a chair, with his feet up in the true American posture, which, however, mind you, I in no way decry, being much given to it myself. I had telegraphed to my sons to meet the train, and there they were as I got out. But they were both so sunburnt I scarcely knew them. Luckily ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... by not even the faintest sound, she became aware that she was not alone; that a human being was breathing the same atmosphere. Starting into a sitting posture she exclaimed: ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the paper. He sat in an armchair wrapped in a dressing-gown with some large pattern on it. The intense melancholy that preyed upon him could be discerned in his languid posture and feeble frame; it was depicted on his brow and white face; he looked like some plant bleached by darkness. There was a kind of effeminate grace about him; the fancies peculiar to wealthy invalids were also noticeable. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... told, with a considerable quantity of silver. It is now rung over the heads of the faithful on pardons, as a specific against headache and earache—a singular remedy! The cathedral has a fine marble tomb of Bishop Visdelou, preacher to Queen Anne of Austria; he is represented in a half reclining posture, in his pontifical garments. In every part of the cathedral are the ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... pillow, changed it to the cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; now I fiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against the board of the bed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain; I groaned with vexation as I felt that I was in for a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... pattern with small diamonds thickly strung on every thread; a brilliant, sparkling mass of gems. After Mr. McDonald had carefully removed a geode from the other little chamber, he slid down into a fourth, the last of the diminutive suite, having sufficient height to allow a sitting posture with raised head, and opened the small jewel case, while I examined the place it came from. Here all was calcite crystal heavily massed in various forms, and a harmony of blue and brown, with half ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... of manner, no pretty posture or habit, but the simplicity of poetry and the simplicity of Nature, something on the yonder side of imagery. It is to be noted that this noble passage is from Tennyson's generally weakest kind of work—blank verse; ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... During the wait, Sprouse had noiselessly removed his coat, a proceeding that puzzled Barnes. Something light fell to the ground. It was Sprouse who stooped and searched for it in the grass. When he resumed an upright posture, he put his lips close to Barnes's ear ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... I'll tell you," said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting posture. "Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, because you are ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... instinct, advancing his foot mechanically, to save himself from falling, when he was pushed gently forwards. When standing, he could not seat himself—and when sitting, he could not get up without help. In whatever posture he was placed, there he remained. Altogether insensible to question and remark, he looked wildly round upon us, and smiled, and winked with both eyes. These were his sole remaining capabilities—to wink, and to look agreeable. He had been recommended as an object worthy of charity ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... to a sitting posture and turned towards the speaker a face colorless as if dead, but with never a trace of a tear. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her lips were compressed, as if she had made, and was strong to ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... abolished all private rights, regarding the actual living people as a beast of burden, and yet worse, as a robot, subjecting their human machine to the cruelest restraints in order to mechanically maintain it in the unnatural, rigid posture, which, according to principles, they inflict upon it. Thenceforth, all ties are sundered between them and the nation; to prey upon, bleed and starve this nation, to re-conquer it after it bad escaped them, to repeatedly enchain and gag it—all this they could well do; but to reconcile it to their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... now accomplished, and I desired no more. I requested him to arise from his abject posture, and listen to me. Then I told him all I knew of his hypocrisy and wickedness—how I had become aware of his criminal intercourse with my mother, which, combined with his vile conduct and intentions in regard to myself, had induced me to punish him in ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... first-born son, and I am willing to beg for it," and, rising from her chair, she threw herself upon her knees beside him, "only be my son, forget the past and let me be to you, as I am, your mother! No, let me be!" she exclaimed, as he would have raised her from her kneeling posture. "I have no son but you, for Walter, like his father, has deserted me, with taunts and sneers. I can help you, too," she added, eagerly, but in low tones, "help you in a way of which you little dream. Do you know what Ralph Mainwaring will attempt next? He will try to implicate you in the ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... no better foil could be imagined than Brush. If they recalled the tusked monsters that charged in the van of Asiatic armies, his analogue was the desert horse. Small, spare, sensitive, shy, his every posture suggested race, training, spirit, and docility. His flair for classical art had become proverbial. By mere touch he detected those remarkable counterfeits of Syracusan coins. It was he who segregated the Renaissance ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... observing the Mice no longer came down as usual, hungry and disappointed of her prey, had recourse to this stratagem:—She hung by her hind legs on a peg which stuck in the wall, and made as if she had been dead, hoping by this lure to entice the Mice to come down. She had not been in this posture long before a cunning old Mouse peeped over the edge of the shelf, and spoke thus:—"Ha! ha! my good friend, are you there? There you may be! I would not trust myself with you, though your skin were stuffed ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... wrote Hindenlang; 'threw themselves on their knees, with their faces buried in the snow, praying to God, and remaining as motionless as if they were so many saints, hewn in stone. Many remained in that posture as long as the fighting lasted.' The truth appears to be that many of Nelson's men had been intimidated into joining the rebel force. The engagement lasted in all about two hours and a half. The defenders of the church made several successful sallies; and just when the ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... beautifully honest picture of the doings of a saint's mind: "I throw myself down in my chamber and call in and invite God and His angels thither, and when they are there I neglect God and His angels for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door. I talk on in the same posture of praying, eyes lifted up, knees bowed down, as though I prayed to God, and if God or His angels should ask me when I thought last of God in that prayer I cannot tell. Sometimes I find that I had forgot what I was about, but when ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... he spent the first part of Lent in praising God standing; growing weaker, he continued his prayer sitting; and towards the end, finding his spirits almost quite exhausted, not able to support himself in any other posture, he lay on the ground. However, it is probable, that in his advanced years he admitted some mitigation of this wonderful austerity. When on his pillar, he kept himself, during this fast, tied to a pole; but at length was able to fast the whole ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... held the lake wholly at command. It was the same day, I think, that one of the boats was seen to be getting up steam, and shortly afterward she paddled out from the island, and came directly toward Virgin Bay. Things were quickly put in posture for a fight. The neutral residents, who had returned from San Juan, again set out over the Transit road. The squad of infantry which had just come in from Rivas was placed at the extreme end of the wooden pier that ran some one hundred and fifty yards into the lake. They were armed with rifled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... the posture of his affairs when one day he became apprised of the presence in the neighbourhood of the picnic-party aforesaid. He stalked them with care, saw the preparation of their meal, eyed the large basket carried by the grooms, and thought with longing of the tea it was sure to ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... the game!" he said aloud, and instantly strode across the room, as Cato sprang up and barked furiously at the box. Simultaneously the top of the box flew up, and uttering a shrill whistle, the man sprang to a sitting posture, while through the wide-flung door the other two ruffians appeared with pistols cocked, At once there began a deadly struggle. The dog had leaped upon the box and knocked the "dead" man's pistol out of his hand, as Frank ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... look narrowly upon her in the light, stand near her, nearer yet, thou shalt perceive almost as much, and love less, as [5744] Cardan well writes, minus amant qui acute vident, though Scaliger deride him for it: if he see her near, or look exactly at such a posture, whosoever he is, according to the true rules of symmetry and proportion, those I mean of Albertus Durer, Lomatius and Tasnier, examine him of her. If he be elegans formarum spectator he shall find many faults in physiognomy, and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... secure by the same means which had proved abortive with Bern. Here, however, they seemed to succeed better. In fact, the general assembly of the canton handed over at their request a sealed promise not to separate themselves in matters of faith. In this posture of affairs, they held immoveably firm to the opinion, that whatever seven or eight out of thirteen states thought fit, should be considered the decision of the Confederacy. But our whole earlier history shows ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... the Hegumen, with difficulty rising to a sitting posture—"yes, but it remained to make the accomplishment binding on the consciences of the signatories. Hear now what was done. A form of oath was draughted invoking the most awful maledictions on the parties who should violate the decree, and it ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... experienced from childhood, that a dress or other object lying by chance on a chair, or on the ground, or hanging on a piece of furniture or a peg, seen in connection with the other things near it, is transformed into a person or animal, in a sitting or standing posture or lying at full length, as if it had been a spectre or phantasm; somewhat like the figures which we all take pleasure in tracing in the strange and mobile forms of clouds. The fantastic figure sometimes appears instantaneously ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... matter, Herman? You do not seem to be yourself! You have not welcomed me! you have not kissed me! you have not even called me by my name, since I first came in! Oh! can it be possible that after all you are not glad to see me?" she exclaimed, rising from her caressing posture and standing sorrowfully before him. Her face that had looked pale and sad from the first was now ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... convey to the inhabitant of an old and civilized land, the rich and graceful forms of the trees, the massy moss-grown trunks which cumber the soil, the tree half uptorn by some furious gale and still remaining in the falling posture in which the winds have left it, the drooping disorder of dead and dying branches, the mingling of rich grasses and useless weeds, all declare that here man knows not the luxuries the soil can yield him: it was over such a scene, rendered still more lovely by the falling shadows of night, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... from his recumbent posture, and took possession of the musket. Then, with the utmost prudence, he stepped over the bodies of the sleeping soldiers; but with all his circumspection, he could not prevent one of his shoes from squeaking a little, and it required only a particle ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... now raised himself up in a sitting posture, and was looking around with an expression of countenance which was a strange blending of relief at this unexpected respite from the grave, and intense mortification at finding himself in the ridiculous position which the address of Capitola and his own weak nerves, cowardice ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Arriving within view of the harbor they discovered the plate fleet at anchor, with two men-of-war and an armed galley riding as a guard at the mouth of the harbor, scarce half a league distant from the other ships. Having spied the fleet in this posture, the pirates presently pulled down their sails and rowed along the coast, feigning to be a Spanish vessel from Nombre de Dios. So hugging the shore, they came boldly within the harbor, upon the opposite side of which you might see the fortress a ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... who had climbed the Hoch-Koenig without a guide, was found dead, in a sitting posture, near the summit, upon which he had written, "It is cold, and clouds shut out the view."—Vide the Daily ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... The posture of affairs in the small world of Gylingden, except in the matter of the alliance just referred to, was ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... prizes for a chariot-race, a cestus-fight, a wrestling-match, a foot-race, a lance-fight, a disk-hurling, a strife of archery and of darters. AEneas, on the first anniversary of his father's funeral, proposes five trials of skill—for the chariot-race of Homer, suitably to the posture of the Trojan affairs, a sailing-match; then, the foot-race, the terrible cestus, archery, and lastly, the beautiful equestrian tournament of Young Troy. The English Homer of the Dunces treads in the footsteps of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture in the tomb of Shopsisuri. Four registrars of the funerary temple of Usirniri advance in a crawling posture towards the master, the fifth has just risen and holds himself in a stooping attitude, while an usher introduces him and transmits to him an order to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... lie upon them again. Then, in spite of hunger and pain, a comfortable and exhilarating sensation stole over me, which I did not know to be the approach of sleep till I was roused by the reveille, and sprang up in a sitting posture, when the first man my eyes fell on was Denham, who was peering about among the troopers as if for something ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... when appointed Kurfurst of Brandenburg in 1323: of course he had a "STATEHOLDER" (Viceregent, STATTHALTER); then, and afterwards in occasional absences of his, a series of such, Kaiser's Councillors, Burggraf Friedrich IV. among them, had to take some thought of Brandenburg in its new posture. Who these Brandenburg Statthalters were, is heartily indifferent even to Dryasdust,—except that one of them for some time was a Hohenzollern: which circumstance Dryasdust marks with the due note of admiration. "What he did there," Dryasdust admits, "is not written anywhere;"—good, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... to march thither, I assembled the companies at Bethlehem, the chief establishment of those people. I was surprised to find it in so good a posture of defense; the destruction of Gnadenhut had made them apprehend danger. The principal buildings were defended by a stockade; they had purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition from New York, and ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... by any sanctimonious debauch of sentimentality or religiosity, may we accomplish the first feeble step toward liberation. On the contrary, only by firmly planting our feet on the solid ground of scientific fact may we even stand erect—may we even rise from the servile stooping posture of the slave, borne down by the weight of ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... reflection in my mind. If unfortunately the Indians be determined to commit acts of hostility in the spring, they are at too great a distance for us to succeed in any effort we may be disposed to make to avert so great a calamity. Therefore, the next consideration is the posture we are to assume in case of such an event; whether we are to remain in a state of strict neutrality, which doubtless the Americans will call upon us to observe, and thereby sacrifice our influence over the Indians; or, unmindful of the consequences, continue ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... the steps and placed one knotted foot upon them, standing thus in silence a little while, as if thinking it over. The dust of the highroad was on his broad black hat, and gray upon his grizzly beard. In the attitude of his lean frame, in the posture of his foot upon the step, he seemed to be asserting a mastery over the place which he had invaded to the sad dispersion of Sarah ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the gipsy, as sure as I am a sinner," said Mr. Bertram. The Dominie groaned deeply, uncrossed his legs, drew in the huge splay foot which his former posture had extended, placed it perpendicularly, and stretched the other limb over it instead, puffing out between whiles huge volumes of tobacco smoke. "What needs ye groan, Dominie? I am sure Meg's sangs ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... good. He had stopped thinking. He couldn't think. His head didn't ache; it was merely sore. He might have been dashing it against the wall, as figuratively he had done. His body was sore too—stiff from long sitting in the same posture, and bruised as if from beating. All that was nothing, however, since misery only stunned him. To be stunned was what he had been ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... was a very timerous Man, and almost trembled at the Talk of Spirits) to Counterfeit a Ghost, by which means I wou'd quickly use a Stratagem which shou'd Relieve him without Danger. And as soon as he had put himself into a Suitable Posture, and Plac'd himself in a convenient Corner to play the Devil with my Husband, (in case the Cuckold should come into the Room which he had taken for his Sanctuary) I fram'd a Counterfeit Smile, and let in my Husband; whom I received with very kind words, and gave him ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... understand the deceptions she had been thus practising on herself, and living under!—The blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart!—she sat still, she walked about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery—in every place, every posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly; that she had been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she was wretched, and should ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... kicked Tim's hands away from his ankles as, raised to a sitting posture by Danny and Martin, his puzzled glance swept the field. "Where's—where's everyone?" ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and once more brought the breakfast-tray to the bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture and took the thing upon his knees, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old Roger Chillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stooping posture. "With all my heart! Why, mistress, I hear good tidings of you on all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your affairs, Mistress Hester, and whispered me that there had been question ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them. The slaves too in the olden time took their meal sitting on benches in the atrium, so that the whole familia was present. This means that the dinner was in those days only a necessary break in the intervals of work, and the sitting posture was always retained for slaves, i.e. those who would go about their work as soon as the meal was over. Columella, writing under the early Empire, urges that the vilicus or overseer should sit at his dinner except on festivals; and Cato the younger would not recline after ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... had the very best feminine rider I ever saw; she was a perfect female Centaur, looking part and parcel of the animal upon which she stood; and then we had a regularly Dutch-built lady, who amused us with a tumble off her horse, coming down on the loose saw-dust, in a sitting posture, and making a hole in it as large as if a covey of partridges had been husking in it for the whole day. An American black (there always is a black fellow in these companies, for, as Cooper says, they learn ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it; therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense; but in my opinion it is unnecessary, and would be unwise, to extend them. Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, in a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies." In a previous part of the same letter Washington makes the following admirable and just remark: "The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... jaded," wrote Captain Miller of the "Theseus," who obeyed a summons to move, "that as soon as they had hove our sheet anchor up they dropped under the capstan bars, and were asleep in a moment in every sort of posture, having been then working at their fullest exertion, or fighting, for near twelve hours." Nelson, in common with other great leaders, could not be satisfied with any but the utmost results. To quote again his words of years gone by: "Had ten ships been ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... meal was placed upon the ground, and the Indians gathered around it in a sitting posture, Tom followed their example, and did full justice to the dinner. In fact, he had taken so much exercise that he felt hungry. Besides, he knew that he must keep up his strength, if he wished to escape; so, instead of keeping aloof in sullen ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... large family comprising the various forms of monkeys, baboons, man-apes, such as the gibbon, gorilla, chimpanzee, orang-outang, etc., all of which have big jaws, small brains, and a stooping posture. This family also includes MAN, with his big brain and erect posture, and his many races depending upon shape of skull, color of skin, character ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Araspes's party asked them all to rise. They did so, and then the superiority of Panthea was still more apparent than before. There was an extraordinary grace and beauty in her attitude and in all her motions. She stood in a dejected posture, and her countenance was sad, though inexpressibly lovely. She endeavored to appear calm and composed, though the tears had evidently been falling from ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... before us the King of smiles. His is the wooer's posture. He speaks, but not with his usual voice of command. Oberon, as it were, calls Titania to the woodland when stars are torch and candle to ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... might do to gain his lost peace. Far, far away would he go! The cold roll of the murder'd man's eye, as it turn'd up its last glance into his face—the shrill exclamation of pain—all the unearthly vividness of the posture, motions, and looks of the dead—the warning voice from above—pursued him like tormenting furies, and were never absent from his mind, asleep or awake, that long weary night. Anything, any place, to escape such horrid companionship! He would travel inland—hire himself to do hard ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... cross-legged on the rug. Dressed as he was, in European clothes, he ought to have looked awkward, even ridiculous. She said so to herself as she gazed down on him; and she knew that he was in the perfectly right posture, comfortable, at his ease, even—somehow—graceful. And, as she knew it, she felt the mystery of his body of the East as sometimes she had felt the mystery of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... in a loud solemn tone, with his hat off, and his eyes lifted up; then drawing a large horse-pistol, he presented, and put himself in a posture of action. Prankley took his distance, and endeavoured to prime, but his hand shook with such violence, that he found this operation impracticable — His antagonist, seeing how it was with him, offered his assistance, and advanced for that purpose; when the poor squire, exceedingly alarmed at ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... was difficult to say whether his words or, so to say, their fine fabric of voice, begot the silence that followed. But all eyes were turned upon Olivia. And, Prince Tabnit noting this, before she might speak he suddenly swept his flowing robes embroidered by a thousand needles to a posture of ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... and rationally to answer "Yes" to all my questions. But at the words "Pym," "Bernard," "Grampus," his eyes began, in appearance, to start from their sockets; those awful teeth gleamed from that cavernous mouth, as he uttered demoniac yell on yell, and raised himself to a sitting posture in the bed. I thought his eyeballs must certainly burst, as he looked off into nothingness wildly, as if a troop of fiends were rushing ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... vous souffrir dans cette posture-la; je serois ridicule de vous y laisser: levez-vous. Voila ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... dunno." Why, you said yesterday that you loved Miss Helen, and just now that you loved Robert and Mary. "Me lub dem." By this time the top of her head was in contact with the floor, when she suddenly raised herself to a kneeling posture and pointing up, said a moment after, "Me lub God," and in a few minutes, as if she were quoting, "An dem dat foller arter Christ." What do you mean by that, Rose? "Me dunno," and I found she had not the least idea. Presently she enumerated Mass' Charlie, Mass' Willyum, and Mister Philbrick ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... feeding posture was one of the principal specimens in the Cope Collection, which, through the generosity of the late President Jesup, was purchased and given to the American Museum. It was found near the Moreau River, ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... court re-echoed the opprobrious term b—, and the word damnation, which he repeated with surprising volubility, without any sort of propriety or connection; and retreated into his penetralia, leaving the baffled devotee in the humble posture she had so unsuccessfully chosen to melt ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the devout intent of the slave acknowledging the Deity." Q "What are the obligatory conditions which precede standing in prayer?" "Purification, covering the shame, avoidance of soiled clothes, standing on a clean place, fronting the Ka'abah, an upright posture, the intent[FN300] and the pronouncing 'Allaho Akbar' of prohibition."[FN301] Q "With what shouldest thou go forth from thy house to pray?" "With the intent of worship mentally pronounced." Q "With what intent shouldest thou enter the mosque?" "With an intent of service." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... not to break out for more than a year. This delay was due to several causes. Austria could not be moved from her posture of timid neutrality. In fact, Francis II. and Cobenzl saw in Napoleon's need of a recognition of his new imperial title a means of assuring a corresponding change of title for the Hapsburg Dominions. Francis had long been weary of the hollow dignity ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... hill, when he was going like a greyhound, Sable stopped short, lowered his head, flung up his heels, and, without the slightest protest or delay, Bert went flying from the saddle, and landed in the middle of the dusty road in a sitting posture with his legs stretched out before him. The saucy pony paused just long enough to make sure that his rider was disposed of beyond a doubt, and then galloped away, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... coming up from his lounging posture, "I've got to hustle. You run along and we'll go out somewhere to-night: dine, if you want to, and drop in at a show. But, for heaven's sake, don't go to digging up graveyards and expecting me to reconstruct your ancestors from as few bones ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... posture," he said, sinking down again. "I suppose I am your prisoner. If you have anything to do, pray do not let me detain you. I cannot get away and you will probably find me here when you come back to dinner. I will occupy myself in cursing you ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... act of lifting his spear he grew stiff and motionless as a statue. The same fate came upon all who followed, till at last Phineus repented of his unjust conduct. All about him he saw nothing but stone images in every conceivable posture. He called despairingly upon his friends and laid hands on those near him; but all were silent, cold and stony. Then fear and sorrow seized him, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... was breathing with such difficulty that the surgeon, bending over him on the other side of the pallet, slipped an arm beneath his shoulders, Harris from his side aiding, and together they slowly raised him almost to a sitting posture, his weary head resting on "Chiquito's" shoulder. But the eyes still sought Lilian, and Archer, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... arm-chair. Each person had a cord knotted by the ends so as to form an endless loop or hoop. The size depended upon the measurement required, so that if the hoop were thrown over the body when in a sitting posture upon the ground, with the knees raised, the rope would form a band around the forepart of the knees and the small of the back, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... had dismounted and was gathering a few tufts of dried grass in his hands. George and I exchanged glances. He presently arose from his stooping posture, and advancing to within a few paces of Joseph Tryan, said in a voice broken ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... do, fare; come to pass. Adj. conditional, modal, formal; structural, organic. Adv. conditionally &c. adj.; as the matter stands, as things are; such being the case &c. 8. % Relative % 8. Circumstance. — N. circumstance, situation, phase, position, posture, attitude, place, point; terms; regime; footing, standing, status. occasion, juncture, conjunctive; contingency &c. (event) 151. predicament; emergence, emergency; exigency, crisis, pinch, pass, push; occurrence; turning ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... man, without speaking a word, could exhibit tragedies or comedies, and make starts and bounds supply the place of vocal articulation. Notwithstanding the obscurity of this whole matter, one may know what to admit as certain, or how far a representation could be carried by dance, posture and grimace. Among these artificial dances, of which we know nothing but the names, there was, as early as the time of Aristophanes, some extremely indecent. These were continued in Italy from the time of Augustus, long after the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... wonderfully endearing. I answered him that I had found a friend, whose principles were as liberal and enlarged as they were uncommon; and that I would take an early occasion to give him an account of my present designs, and the posture of my affairs. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... illusion," he thought; but it brought him to a sitting posture, just as a bell of different tone sounded "ding, ding, ding," and again ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... they came to her when she could no longer, with ease, be conveyed to them. The enfeebled state of her bodily frame seemed to have left the powers of her mind unshackled, and she took, though in a sitting posture, almost her usual part in repeatedly addressing the meeting. She urged, with increased pathos and affection, the objects of philanthropy and Christian benevolence with which her life had been identified. After the meeting, and at her own desire, several members of the committee, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... part," replied Pope, "I have long since had an idea how that might be done; and if any body would make me a present of a Welch mountain, and pay the workmen, I would undertake to see it executed. I have quite formed it sometimes in my imagination: the figure must be on a reclining posture, because of the hollowing that would be necessary, and for the city's being in one hand. It should be a rude unequal hill, and might be helped with groves of trees for the eye brows, and a wood for the ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... LILLAH MCCARTHY justice, she went through a scene embarrassing alike to actors and audience with as much dignity and aloofness as the situation admitted. In a previous scene there had been one rather gratuitous posture which we might perhaps have been spared; but, for the rest, from the moment when she first entered, a noble figure in her robes of widowhood, veiling all but the oval of her face, pale and passionless, she played with a fine restraint, giving us confidence in her reserve of strength and never once ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... need of diminishing the public honors which he received than of increasing them. When he found, too, how much excitement his conduct on that occasion had produced, he explained it by saying that he had retained his sitting posture on account of the infirmity of his health, as it made him dizzy to stand. He thought, probably, that these pretexts would tend to quiet the strong and turbulent spirits around him, from whose envy or rivalry he had most to fear, without at all interfering with the effect ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... and wide, of endeavoring to stand erect, and of adopting this habit constantly from generation to generation, there is no doubt that their feet would gradually and imperceptibly assume a conformation adapted for an erect posture, that their legs would develop calves, and that these creatures would not afterwards walk as they do now, painfully on both ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... as sitting in a reclining posture, during a lucid interval of the afflicting malady to which he was subject, with a calm and benign aspect, as if seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the consolations of the gospel, which appears open on a table before him, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... complete overturn, but there sat Galusha, the back of the chair against the wall and his knees elevated at a very acute angle. The alarming part of it was that he made no effort to regain his equilibrium, but remained in the unusual, not to say undignified, posture. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... difficult, yet at the same time more glorious. But he spoke in vain, for all who were not actually favorable to Pisistratus listened only to their fears, and remained passive; nor did any one join Solon, when, as a last appeal, he put on his armor and planted himself in military posture before the door of his house. "I have done my duty (he exclaimed at length); I have sustained to the best of my power my country and the laws"; and he then renounced all further hope of opposition—though resisting the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... concerned: they are all from six and a half to seven heads high; but no motion of limbs happens under the draperies, and the hands and feet, like the faces, are expressed by a set of arbitrary conventions. It is not even easy to determine whether the posture of the woman on the right is intended for sitting or kneeling. She holds a tray, on which is an idol, and to provide sufficient balance for the composition the artist has placed a yellow umbrella in the idol's hand. Examine this design from end to end, and nowhere will you find any desire to imitate ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... a necessary part of prayer. Some choose to pray standing, others prefer to kneel. It is not the posture of body God looks at, but the posture of the heart. Reverence there must be, but such reverence as comes from the inner sanctuary of the soul, and which only finds outward expression in the body. ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... which is preserved in the Vatican, mentions that Francis, having directed the body of Brother Peter to be removed sometime afterwards, it was found that it was turned and kneeling, the head bowed down, and in the posture of one who obeys a command given him. To mark the value of obedience and the respect due to it, God was pleased to permit a dead person to obey the orders of a superior, as if he ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... were some minutes in this extraordinary situation; but, as my strength returned, I felt myself both ashamed and awkward, and moved towards the door. Pale and motionless, he suffered me to pass, without changing his posture, or uttering ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... their bosoms as guitars, and attempting the posture of the thrummer on the instrument; 'she knows. She does know. Handsome Susie knows what we want.' And one ejaculated, mellifluously, 'Oh!' and the other 'Ah!' in flagrant derision of the foreign ways they produced in boorish burlesque—a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
